PROMOTING NATURAL GAS VEHICLES IN INDIA
India has a mature natural gas vehicle industry but it needs shaping to fit better with the modern world. With the wave of LNG heading towards India and environmental concerns unabated, everyone could win.
The transportation sector is nowadays regarded as the salvation of companies holding more gas than they know what to do with. Bunkering and shipping have led the way, thanks to clean air initiatives in the US and the EU.
Road transport has always been there, but only as a small part of the story owing to the reluctance of investors to build cars that have almost nowhere to fill up; or of building filling stations with very little demand.
However the direction of travel in India is encouraging investors along the value chain, according to speakers at the NGV India Summit held in New Delhi mid-July. The country’s natural gas vehicle (NGV) program is now close to two decades old in India. The 1990s witnessed a relentless campaign to improve the local air quality. This led the Supreme Court of India in 1995 to mandate the switch over to natural gas and resulted in installation of a body called The Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority. Then, in 2001 the body recommended the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) among users and paved the way for India’s first large scale CNG program in New Delhi. Since then India has seen the NGV fleet exceed 2.8mn vehicles on the roads.
Although the first-generation CNG program in Delhi and Mumbai yielded benefits, the time is right for the next generation as the environmental debate grabs the headlines in India. It was in this context that French energy giant Engie presented its concept ‘LNG to Delhi’ at the summit. The idea is to develop LNG fueling stations along the Mundra Delhi corridor for heavy-duty vehicles. The plan envisages four LNG stations, one every 400 km. Stakeholders would be authorities, transporters, industrials, energy suppliers and truck manufacturers.
https://www.naturalgaseurope.com/ngw-magazine-promoting-natural-gas-vehicles-in-india-31635